


funnel cakes

by envysparkler



Series: Reverse Robins [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Dick is an adorable ball of sunshine and even grumpy Tim cannot resist, Gen, Good Sibling Tim Drake, Reverse Robins, funnel cakes, in which Tim does not want to be a big brother and also doesn't get a choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27599560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler
Summary: Tim heard the patter of small footsteps, not yet trained to walk silently, and inwardly groaned.And then he heard a crash, like someone had attempted to do a handspring over his coffee table and ended up spilling his stack of precariously piled files to the ground, and groaned out loud.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Reverse Robins [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017735
Comments: 88
Kudos: 811





	funnel cakes

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many Reverse Robin ideas and this one just sort of spilled out of my fingertips.

If there was one purchase that Tim was one hundred percent happy with, it was the blackout curtains on his apartment, because he couldn’t tell if it was three in the morning or three in the afternoon when he cracked open his eyes.

He fumbled for his phone – it was daylight after all – and straightened up, rubbing at his face. He hadn’t set any alarm, so what had woken him –

Tim heard the patter of small footsteps, not yet trained to walk silently, and inwardly groaned.

And then he heard a crash, like someone had attempted to do a handspring over his coffee table and ended up spilling his stack of precariously piled files to the ground, and groaned out loud.

He was in the living room in ten seconds, gun in hand. “ _Dick_ ,” Tim said slowly, glaring at the child standing in the middle of a mess of papers, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I wanted funnel cakes,” the kid said, like that was an appropriate response after having broken into the Red Hood’s safehouse and destroyed his filing system.

“You wanted –” Tim took a deep breath and let it out before he did something stupid, like shoot the kid. Wait a minute. Dick would never have been able to sneak past Tim’s security system. “Jason!” Tim growled, stalking past Dick towards the kitchen.

Jason didn’t even look up from where he was measuring out flour with great concentration. “Hey, Timbo,” the kid chirped, completely ignoring the gun levelled at his head, “You like funnel cakes, right?”

“Get out of my apartment,” Tim snapped, and was forced to put the gun down as a ten-year-old blur launched itself at his head. Tim braced himself and Dick landed on his shoulders and quickly flipped up into a handstand before dropping, his legs hooked over Tim’s shoulders.

Jason looked up and _grinned_.

_Nightwing will actually murder you if you hurt the kids_ , a part of Tim’s mind chanted, _and then he’ll throw you back in the Pit and murder you_ again _._

It wasn’t worth it. Tim holstered the gun and stomped over to the espresso machine – his second greatest purchase – and angrily made himself a cup of coffee as Jason started mixing the batter together. Oil was already heating on the stove, in a pot Tim hadn’t known he owned. A quick check in the fridge showed that it was stocked with both vegetables and packed containers of homemade meals.

Dick clambered off his head and on top of the fridge when Tim had gotten close enough. Tim mentally calculated how much it would cost to install some uneven bars across the ceiling before hastily suppressing that line of thought. He didn’t need to give the kid _further_ incentive for trying to break into Tim’s apartment.

Tim had only had this particular safehouse for a month, and it was already compromised. At least it wasn’t _Nightwing_ that had shown up.

“Why are you here?” Tim asked after he finished the first cup of coffee and filled up a second. Jason paused his mixing to give him a judgmental stare, and Tim met it coolly. He was an undead zombie, he was allowed to fill his body with whatever fuel got it ticking.

“Funnel cakes!” Dick said breathlessly. Yes, Tim had gotten that part.

“Dick remembered a recipe,” Jason said, “And asked if I could help him make it.” Tim wasn’t sure how much helping was going on, but the whole family bent over backwards to make sure that Dick kept pleasant memories of his time at the circus.

Tim could understand why. Dick wasn’t like the rest of them – wasn’t trained to be a killer from birth, hadn’t been stalking Batman since he was nine, and hadn’t grown up in some of the most crime-ridden streets in the world. Tim hadn’t been able to bring himself to crack the sunshine smile the first time he’d crossed paths with Bruce’s newest foundling, and it had unfortunately bitten him in the ass.

“And you’re not doing this at the Manor _why_?” Tim leaned against the counter and ignored Dick as he again used Tim’s shoulders as a springboard to leap for the island.

Jason shrugged his shoulders, mixing more vigorously than Tim thought the batter warranted.

“We asked Dami if he’d help us,” Dick hummed, “And he said something about street food and ‘puerile wastes of time and effort’.”

Tim hid his twitching lips behind the coffee mug.

“If he doesn’t want funnel cakes, he’s not getting them,” Jason scowled, pouring the batter into a cone-shaped icing bag before muttering, almost under his breath, “Apparently street food’s beneath his royal highness.”

Oh _Damian_. Jason had a much better relationship with his eldest brother than Tim did – if scorn and attempted murder could be classified as a relationship – but he would turn stubborn and seething the moment any of his triggers were pushed, and disdain for anything street-made was definitely one of them.

Of course, Damian hated sweet things with a violent passion after the one time he’d gotten a poisoned cake to the face during patrol and ended up puking over the side of a building, but Tim wasn’t going to mention that.

The sizzle of batter in the oil actually smelled tempting and Tim drifted to hover over Jason’s shoulder as he watched the kid drizzle batter into incomprehensible shapes.

“Make a bat-shaped one!” Dick chirped, and Tim caught him before he could finish his ridiculous set of acrobatics next to bubbling hot oil. Jason snorted, but obliged – a bat, a squiggly robin, and a skull Tim supposed represented his helmet joined the mess of more traditionally shaped funnel cakes on the drying rack as Jason dusted powdered sugar over all of them.

Tim was pleased to see that the Nightwing insignia was nowhere to be found.

The cakes tasted as good as they smelled and Tim scarfed down two before his stomach reminded him that it hadn’t gotten fed in a while. “Alfred was cool with you guys eating funnel cakes for breakfast?” Tim asked as he meticulously dismembered one of the bat-shaped cakes.

Jason looked disturbed, but Tim didn’t know whether it was because of his words or his…art. “Timbit, it’s _five in the afternoon_.”

Tim gave him a level stare as he decapitated the cake-bat. Time was an illusion.

“Are you _sure_ you’re not a vampire?” Jason asked, squinting at him in suspicion.

“Of course he’s not a vampire,” Dick said cheerfully, “A chicken didn’t cross his grave.”

Both Tim and Jason swiveled their stares to the youngest member of their family. Dick had a habit of dropping creepy information like he was commenting on the weather, and it never failed to make a shiver run down Tim’s spine. What the hell kind of circus had the kid been in?

“You’re going to let him eat all that?” Tim asked instead, diverting the topic in favor of the mound of funnel cakes on Dick’s plate, “He’s going to make himself sick.”

“Damian’s training him after this,” Jason said, a familiar, mischievous grin on his face, “So he’s Big Bird’s problem now.”

Tim was startled into a laugh, and Jason’s grin widened until he was beaming. “I’ve taught you well,” Tim chuckled, dropping an absent pat on Jason’s head as he stood up. Something prickled down his spine as he dumped his dish in the sink, letting Jason’s teasing argument with Dick over the last cake-robin drift to the background.

Tim turned back to the kitchen island, squeezing Jason’s shoulder and ruffling Dick’s hair, getting both of them to turn towards him with sunny grins. And then he tilted his head and stared straight at the vigilante peering through the window.

Tim smiled, slow and wide. On the other side of the glass, Nightwing’s expression shifted to a glower.

* * *

“Hood.”

“I’ve thought I’ve made it clear that I don’t tolerate Bats interfering in my cases.”

“And _I_ thought _I_ made it clear that anyone who dares to harm my brothers will find themselves regretting their existence.”

“You’ve had eight years to make me regret my existence, Nightwing, and you haven’t managed it yet. Leave before I shoot you.”

“Do you think you can?”

“Ego is a bad look on you, and so is jealousy. Did you really come looking for a fight because you can’t stand that more members of your family prefer me to you?”

“I trust you remember our previous conversation, Hood, and the exact consequences of you failing to toe the line.”

“Really? You’re worried about _me_ toeing the line? I’ve never tried to kill my brothers, which is more than you can say.”

“I wasn’t –”

“Save it, Nightwing. Leave, or I _will_ shoot.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying out a new thing, where I write fluff and then shove some angst in at the end.


End file.
